Looks gorgeous... but I said the same thing about the preview to Moulin Rouge, then nearly walked out on the actual film..... There's actually a better quality version of the preview here.

Australia was to have opened on Nov. 14, but because of the Harry Potter move to next July, Fox has pushed back the release of Australia to Nov. 26th, the long Thanksgiving holiday.

Schmaltzy romantic melodrama in the context of a World War...

...anybody remember a little movie called Pearl Harbor?

Well, Baz Luhrman and Michael Bay are two very, very different directors.

The Australian: "...with its much-vaunted release date just weeks away, on November 26, nobody has seen a final print of the film. Why? Because one doesn’t exist."

Australia: Where is It?
Fox admits that Baz Luhrmann is hanging onto the movie until the last possible moment before it premieres November 19 in Australia. The L.A. press junket originally scheduled for November 14-15 has been pushed back to the 20th and 21st. L.A. screenings start Wednesday the 19th; New York begins showing the film the Monday after the junket. The New York premiere is November 24. Australia opens wide stateside on Thanksgiving weekend, Wednesday November 26. The December schedule is intense, with Hugh Jackman, Nicole Kidman and Luhrmann working hard; Fox is screening Australia for the Variety and LAT screening series, and the Screen Actors and Producers Guilds.
Anne Thompson, Variety, November 3

Baz Luhrmann changes Australia's ending after bad test reviews
BAZ Luhrmann has bowed to studio pressure and dropped the sad ending to his epic film Australia.
Luhrmann's initial cut - which ran for more than three hours - ended with Hugh Jackman's character, The Drover, dying in the final scenes.
After disastrous reviews from test screenings, Twentieth Century Fox executives decided the film's final moments should be more uplifting.
NEWS.com.au, November 9

And knowing that the studio forced a change in the ending (whatever it is) based on audience reactions, I suspect that I'll be unable to take the movie seriously. I hope Lurhmann fought hard against this.

Hopefully the fact that Baz ultimately gave in on this is an indication that he didn't disagree with them TOO strongly. I know I've edited films before where I'll start with an ending that may have a special resonance with me, but that I know will be a tougher "sell" to an audience. And as many times as not, it's not because it's clearly the better ending, but rather because I know if I don't start there first, I'll never give that ending a chance to see if it really is better or not. So looking at this optimistically, it's possible that he knew deep down that it wasn't going to work as is, and when the studio came calling on it, he relented properly. But we'll see...

I want to see this. I kind of like schmaltzy romantic epics (I enjoyed Atonement). Admitting it on here is sort of liberating.

Please, Jeff, please ... don't call Atonement "schmaltzy" (I'm a big fan), and don't compare Atonement with Australia. You'll realize the stark differences when you see the Lurhmann film.

Well, I guess I throw the term "schmaltzy" around loosely. Anything with lots of kissing and sex.

Would Pearl Harbor be a more apt comparison?

In some ways Pearl Harbor would be a more apt comparison.

However, it's a very Luhrmann film. I had gotten the impression from the trailers that Lurhmann was trying something different. He is, but less than you'd think.

Jeff wrote:
: Well, I guess I throw the term "schmaltzy" around loosely. Anything with lots of kissing and sex.

Atonement had "lots" of these things!?

A decent helping. It was pretty romantic, IIRC.

Seems that Australian critics are not overly impressed with Australia.

Another point of comparison that just occurred to me on the air, but which I wasn't able to come up with the title in time to use at the end of the segment, is Gangs of New York.

Gangs of New York, eh? I didn't see that coming!

I watched that particular film last spring and thought it was typical post-Americana. It touches on crime, violence, cultural nationalist tension, corruption, and class warfare, suggesting through its (overlong) plotless running time that our America today is formed by a melting pot of all of the above. To be honest, I still don't get what the point was.

What makes you say Australia is similar? My curiosity is piqued!

Leave out the crime and corruption, change the national references, and you could almost be describing Australia.

Jeffrey Wells:

It all comes down to The Wizard of Oz, which is frequently and blatantly referenced. The bones of the story are told by Kidman to Walters, Judy Garland clips are shown twice, "Over The Rainbow" is sung, hummed and orchestrated. The metaphor is simple, mate. This is a film set in a country commonly referred to (certainly in the pages of old-time Variety) as Oz, and Luhrmann is the wizard -- the puller of strings and levers behind the curtain, the kindly fellow pulling off a flim-flam, the rascal with the booming amplified voice, the releaser of clouds of billowing black smoke and other awesome effects.

Ah, but Wells concludes:

Trust me -- that's all this movie is about. Look at me, I'm a wild man, look at what I can do, I'm so extreme I can barely stand it, welcome to my world, blah blah. It's certainly eye-filling and, okay, emotionally gripping toward the end, but it taxes the soul and sets the foot a tapping.

I was one of two people who walked out of the theater last. When I asked the press person what the consensus reaction had been, she said, "It's really long."

Ladies and gentlemen, Peter T. Chattaway has given this movie four stars!

Australia might strike some as a clichéd, overblown, sappy, messy blend of reality and artifice (i.e., the important commentary on Australia's racial issues mixed with campy dialogue and subpar CGI cow stampedes). But I found it to be a pleasurable, invigorating mess. Like most of the great Hollywood epics, Australia isn't perfect. It's not high art—but cinema never had that heritage. It was always a medium for the masses, and came of age in a depression, when the masses needed it most. Australia is not a film for Australians as much as it is for the world, and it isn't a history lesson. It's an ode to a place (exotic to some, familiar to others), yes, but more than that, Australia is state of mind: wonderment, grandeur, beauty, love, escape, hope.

I think it's a film we need right now.

I read a positive review this morning from Ann Hornaday in the Washington Post, and was beginning to think the critical reactions might split male/female (negative/positive), but Peter breaks the mold (if the mold ever existed to begin with).

I wanted to call this movie a crushing disappointment, but couldn't muster the energy. The film sapped me of all feeling and energy. It was a huge, huge bore.

FWIW, the film was at 58% percent at RT yesterday when I checked, and I wondered how this morning's batch of reviews would affect that rating. Answer: It's down to 48%.

Christian wrote:
: Ladies and gentlemen, Peter T. Chattaway has given this movie four stars!

Erm, no, that's Brett McCracken. I wouldn't go any higher than three, myself. And probably not even that high.

: FWIW, the film was at 58% percent at RT yesterday when I checked, and I wondered how this morning's batch of reviews would affect that rating. Answer: It's down to 48%.

So Fox's unlucky streak continues! (Patrick Goldstein has already counted 20-something Fox films that scored under 50% at RT. The only one since mid-summer 2007 to score higher than 50% so far is Horton Hears a Who.)

Brett's take on Australia -- "a pleasurable, invigorating mess" -- was sort of my take on Moulin Rouge!, though I couldn't get past the weaknesses there either.

Like Christian (and Peter), I can't bring myself to care as much about Australia. It's diverting while it's on the screen; that's about the most I can say for it.

Whoa, I blew that one, didn't I? Sorry. Don't know how I misread the byline.

I'm not as kind about this movie as you all are. I thought it was a bomb. I could feel myself shutting down about 40 minutes into the thing. Which made for a very long movie.

Christian wrote:
: Whoa, I blew that one, didn't I? Sorry. Don't know how I misread the byline.

Well, it's possible that my name ended up in the byline, at first; it's happened before. But if so, it got fixed really quick.

: I'm not as kind about this movie as you all are. I thought it was a bomb. I could feel myself shutting down about 40 minutes into the thing. Which made for a very long movie.

Wow, no doubt! I didn't check my watch until at least 90 minutes in.

So, I've said before that I'm probably the only A&Fer who enjoys Rex Reed's reviews, but I never thought my reviews would sound so similar to his. I used the word "Boredom" in the headline of my review, and called the film "an overstuffed turkey," but I hadn't seen those terms in a review until now:

As year-end movies go, I had high hopes for Australia. I really wanted to like this one. In a jaded epoch of pretentiousness and cookie-cutter déjà vu, a humongous, sprawling, romantic, action-packed epic (bring ’em on!) about earth’s last untamed frontier, starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman, was, I bargained, just what the doctor ordered. Alas, it is my sad duty to report that even the two prettiest people on the screen today can’t save this titanic turkey from dropping dead of exhaustion. Desperately in need of a pair of scissors at a running time (not much sprawl, but lots of crawl) of almost three hours, Australia is one of the most boring movies ever made, and one of the corniest. Bring bottled water, No-Doze, a sandwich and a clean change of underwear.

Reed then attacks Moulin Rouge, which I greatly enjoyed, so I guess we're not quite on the same page. I thought this bit about Empire of the Sun was interesting, though;

They call this director a visionary, but his visions are all the visions of other people. The cattle drive is right out of dozens of Hollywood westerns. The stampede is right out of Red River. The evacuation of Darwin during the Japanese invasion is stolen, almost angle for angle, from the evacuation of Shanghai in Steven Spielberg’s Empire of the Sun.

Really? I've seen that film at least three times, but any similarities here didn't register with me. Doesn't mean they aren't there, but I didn't pick up on them.

Dave Poland doesn't like the first act, which I thought was the most interesting, if not entirely successful, part of the movie. I started to tune out after those first 20 minutes, too, but not because I'd concluded that the film wasn't Oscar worthy. I simply lost interest.

Poland makes some good points in his review, especially the bit about the different types of film packed into one big package here. Maybe that could've worked, given a bit more time to finalize the product:

[W]ithin 20 minutes, I knew that this film was 90% unlikely to be an Oscar nominee. No, that is not all that counts. But this expensive movie could use the support of a nomination, at least for the U.S. Box office in Australia should be more forgiving, I expect. But the biggest problem in this regard is misleading expectations. I knew, right then, that if the film didn’t snap out of it in a huge way, many audiences – especially the Academy audience, seeing the film in a stampede of other hopefuls - would reject it right then. “We were sold a period drama and we got a wacky Capra-on-acid thing with a kid we didn’t even know was in the movie at the center of it all.”

The tone shifts significantly at about the 80 minutes mark. But for me, while it was not too late for redemption – regardless of many wonderful and wondrous images and ideas up until then – there was a big problem at the heart of this thing. As I write, the child, Brandon Walters, a small 10 when the film was made, is really the center of the film. And more significantly, the issue of half-breed children and The Lost Generation really is the heart of the film. But it’s a romance. But it’s a cattle drive action film. But it’s really a political film about racial tolerance.

EDIT: Ouch! Looks like a bomb, unless Wednesday fails to be predictive of the rest of the weekend.

In the "What I'll be watching this weekend" (or whatever it's called) forum, I wrote:

This is just to say, I was correct on both counts. Why do I care what David Poland, Rex Reed, or Jeffrey Wells thinks? Brett McCracken is right:

My dad, my sister, and I enjoyed every minute. OK, maybe it was a little long. In 1939, it would have had an intermission, like Gone with the Wind. Nevertheless, we were into it. It's a movie, not a film. Deal.

On slightly further reflection, the kitchen-sink quality of it, and the length, makes me think that the negative reviews may be because people are critiquing from a western perspective. Australia is really more from the Bollywood, something-for-everyone-in-3-hours style--but this time without musical numbers.

My extended family went to a movie that night, originally planned was Australia. Then it changed at the last minute to Four Christmases.

This comment, posted below my Australia review, may be my favorite reader comment ever:

DO NOT buy into any sourpuss user comments or the reviewer’s muddled commentary. He must have been at the snack bar all night, because this was a good movie. It’s not often that you can walk away from a film these days feeling satisfied, but Australia is an exception. Cliché or not, exposing yet another hideous behavior by the “Christian” British Empire is both informative and warranted. Regardless of the Shaman “magic”, this was not an exposé of the evils of pagan religion; it was a revelation of what the Aboriginal culture believed to be true. It’s Hollywood. Take it with a grain of salt. Christian Hamaker says the movie is an overstuffed Thanksgiving turkey, but I don’t detect anything but a ham overstuffed with his own snobbish and pretentious opinions.

I love it because it attacks my review, rather than me personally -- nothing here about how I must not be a Christian, which is what I've become accustomed to. And I love that zinger at the end!

The username for the post-er is "BrentLittle," but I secretly think it might've been Beth.

I've used pseudonyms elsewhere, but "BrentLittle" is his own man. Probably represents at least 1000 people who agree with him but didn't post.

Not sure whether I want to spend my $10 on this, or wait for something else. One thing's for sure, though: I have not been as personally unexcited about a holiday awards season release schedule in years.

Beth, you write:



And Roger Ebert writes:



The apparent movie-ness (for lack of a better term) of the piece is what makes me think I might enjoy it, especially on the big screen.

BethR wrote:
: In 1939, it would have had an intermission, like Gone with the Wind.

The fact that you suggest a 2.5-hour movie felt like a 4-hour movie is, itself, kind of telling, dontchathink?

Mainly, it tells me that (1) it's been so long since I've watched GWtW in its entirety that I have no idea how long it actually is, and (2) yes, maybe for a 21st c. US audience, 2.5 hours is about the attention span equivalent.
OTOH, The Dark Knight was also about 2.5 hours long and I thought it would never end. Mamma Mia, just a little over 1.5 hours, also seemed agonizingly endless. YMMV.

Ah, someone else who thought that movie was much too long. We've found common ground, Beth.

Saw this on Friday last. I've certainly got nothing new to say, just adding my voice to the positive side of things. I thought it was a big, sweeping, epic of grand proportions, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I did find it messy and sloppy in parts, and many of the characters were certainly melodramatic and slightly overstated, but I liked the movie for those reasons, just as I like many sweeping epics from the 30's, 40's and 50's for the same reasons.

Besides, if you can't enjoy the movie for that reason, go at least to admire the fantastic cinematography. I was absolutely enthralled by the rich colors and the textured scenes in the film. I have no doubt that a great coffee table book could (and will) be made from stills from the movie.

I found it an enjoyable epic. I can never get enough of gorgeous cinematography of those sweeping desert and canyon vistas. Sure, it's too long, but I found the kid at the center of it to be likeable enough to hold my attention.

I think Baz Luhrman was simply trying to pay homage to the tradition of sweeping old-fashioned Hollywood epics. I get the feeling like he watched Pearl Harbor and decided he could remake the film, set it in Australia instead, and make it a whole lot better. But it seemed to me that Luhrman was a little restrained by the format. Like he was really itching to go ahead and make an all out singing-and-dancing Bollywood-style film, but he didn't want to disrespect the Aborigines and the stolen generation and their history.

David Thomson of The Guardian makes an interesting observation:

Maybe you have to read between the lines, but here are the facts. Baz Luhrmann's Australia is a very big picture – not much short of three hours, epic landscapes, a lot of special effects, Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman, and a final budget at around $130m (£87.5m). Reports from the US suggest that it grossed less than $20m (£13.4m) in its first week. On December 4, the New York Times ran a full-page ad for the film. It quoted chunks from the many friendly reviews. But the image was not Kidman and Jackman in a torrid embrace, not Japanese planes attacking Darwin, not 1,500 cattle on the enormous plains. No, it was a winsome close-up of Brandon Walters who plays the mixed-race boy in the story and who does so much to make the movie work. The marketing of Australia has shifted in 10 days: now, it's a picture about the kid.

All of which tends to sustain one of the more remarkable trends in recent movie history: the way in which Nicole Kidman has become hard to sell. . . .

I have to say a part of me cringes at all these Kidman-is-box-office-poison articles, because I actually kind of like her and I applaud her willingness to tackle some pretty daring projects every now and then. But, yeah, if it's movie-star marketability you want, she's never really had it. Not on her own, at any rate.

And it's intriguing that they would now try to sell the film based on the image of the kid. Was it Dave Poland who said that the problem with this film's marketing was that it never even hinted at the kid in the first place, yet when you see the film you realize that the kid is the heart of the movie?

Now that you Australia fans have had your rally-round-the-flag moment, it's time to put the stake into this movie's heart.

From Owen Gleiberman's list of the worst films of 2008:

More numbing than a Gone With the Wind videogame! More lifeless than a Madame Tussauds replica of Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman! The trouble with Baz Luhrmann's epic bore is that it has no script—it's an abstract series of ''story events'' masquerading as a film. Yet it might have worked had Luhrmann not left his usual directorial delirium somewhere over the rainbow.

There, that's better. (I will not quote his Speed Racer slam. I will not quote his Speed Racer slam. I will not...)